Page 134 of Redemption

“What are we gonna do?” Ryder asked.

Brock looked at Seven, Ryder, and Javier. “Get your gear. Let’s end this.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

The time for celebration and joint-smoking pleasantries was over. Even if Victoria would claim she never inhaled, Lenora definitely had. But that had come and gone, and the hope Victoria had Mayhem would let her go had faded now that she was back in the small compound bedroom. It seemed as though it was getting smaller, and she was positive that she hadn’t so much as got a contact high from the weed that’d been passed around the room.

Victoria paced a U-shaped path around the unmade bed more times than she cared to count. After checking the cell phone’s clock once, twice, and then a dozen times, she had given up tracking how long she waited for Lenora or anyone from Mayhem to come back.

The door handle jangled, and there was Lenora with her old man, Tex. Tex held his phone along with a pack of cigarettes in his hand, staying silent as Lenora greeted her.

“Why can’t I leave?” Victoria asked, having no time for pleasantries, hellos, and whatever else she might have said.

The door opened again, remaining ajar, and the smoker from earlier joined them with a fast food bag stained with grease marks. Victoria’s heart sank at the offer of food because it meant she might not be leaving anytime soon.

The smoker put the bag on the dresser with a grunt after she shooed away his offer.

“You can leave.”

“Great,” Victoria headed toward the door, but the quick hand of the chain-smoker stopped her.

“But.” Lenora shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly as though Victoria wasn’t locked in a room. “First, you have to help us with something else.”

Always a catch. Whether the woman had her attorney hat on, or she was acting as an MC old lady, apparently, there was always a fucking catch. “What’s that?”

“Everything happens for a reason, and you ended up here. That’s better for everyone than my request for you to ignore those MC bounties.”

Victoria’s mind raced back to Sam’s deli, where Lenora had asked her to ignore the two men that had never even raised her attention. “Why?”

“Go pick them up. They never meant to miss their hearings—”

“I’m bringing them in now?” Victoria asked, confused.

“Then I’ll defend them,” Lenora said. “You’ll get paid. End of story.”

“That’s it?” Of course, that wasn’t it, Mayhem was up to something, and Lenora was neck deep in corruption, lies, and motorcycle gang bullshit. But it wasn’t as if Victoria was in a great position to point that out.

“As far as you’re concerned, yes, that’s it.”

“But it makes no sense.”

Lenora tilted her head, giving it a quick nod. “How much do you want to know, Buttercup? The choice is yours: ignorance versus club business.”

Ugh, club business. That wasn’t a good topic to be well versed in. But she was already mixed in deep. “I’m not doing anything unless I know everything.”

Lenora looked over her shoulder at Tex, and he nodded to the smoker, who took a half step closer to the door and shouted, “Adelia, get your sweet ass in here.”

“Club business it is then.” Lenora inched back toward her man and squeezed under his arm.

Tex’s daughter walked in. “You shouted.” She smiled at her father and flicked the smoker off with both middle fingers. “Asshole.”

“Here she is,” Lenora said as though Victoria hadn’t seen the woman before. “Club business.”

Adelia was club business. “And I’m going to bring in those two because of her? Again, makes no sense.”

“I need to send a message to someone on the inside, and the only way to do that is if they get put back into the system,” Adelia explained.

Boom.

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